


let the candle replace all the lights.

by galiciansilk



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: 4k of me self-projecting on luwin, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pining, Realization of Feelings, basically sicheng is the main character in a wong kar-wai film but i'm the wong kar-wai in question, just bros bonding over takeshi kaneshiro's face, they smile at each a lot in this one btw this is your warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29130948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galiciansilk/pseuds/galiciansilk
Summary: pov: you read about sicheng realizing he's in love.
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50





	let the candle replace all the lights.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grumpeaches](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpeaches/gifts).



>   
> happy birthday!!! <3
> 
> ps. title is from yico zeng's 有可能的夜晚。

○ ● ○ 

“i don’t think i’ll ever get tired of looking at takeshi kaneshiro’s face.”

sicheng huffs at this. he looks away from the tv screen, only to meet his eyes from the opposing side of the room. this causes yukhei to adjust the duvet wrapped around his body so he can face sicheng’s, and even when it’s pitch dark inside their room, sicheng can see that he’s wearing those damn rimmed glasses again. 

“no, it’s true! i just think he has a sexy face, ge.”

“yes, he does have a sexy face.”

the clock on their bedside table says 11 pm, but he doesn’t really feel like the day’s about to be over. he would say he’s used to not having schedules lined up and would fall into the whole dorm-gym-practice-room-dorm routine pretty quickly. it’s not a drag, if he thinks about it. he does enjoy the time with the members. they can do the bare minimum sometimes and would look forward to their pets greeting them at the door when they arrive. but when it happens too often, sometimes his days end up being mushed together until it’s just a long series of white noise.

(maybe tonight he doesn’t mind this fact.)

takeshi kaneshiro sat next to the woman in the blonde wig and sicheng sees yukhei propping on his elbow as if preparing for the next scene.

“excuse me, miss,” yukhei echoes as takeshi kaneshiro’s character said the line in cantonese, “do you like pineapple?”

(the line gets repeated in japanese in the film but neither of them repeated it because 1) yukhei doesn’t really speak japanese; and 2) he’s too focused on hearing yukhei say the line in cantonese even though he just heard him speak it over the phone not even an hour ago when he was calling his mom, telling her his very detailed dream from that nap he took on the way home. he hears it included spiders _and_ a big bowl of nasi goreng.)

both of them repeat the line in english, and his roommate twisted his body to face sicheng like he’s takeshi kaneshiro as he says in mandarin, “do you like pineapple, miss?”

sicheng answers in sync with the character, “your mandarin’s not bad.”  
  
  
  


▬ 

when yukhei was just starting to learn mandarin. he has a habit of staring at a character for some time before saying it, like he’s saying it in his head and he’d look at sicheng in the eye as he reads it out loud. sicheng, not a big fan of prolonged eye-to-eye contact that time, would always resort to looking at his mouth instead. of course, sicheng would say it’s all in the name of “reading” the “tone” but honestly he just cannot stare at yukhei’s curious yet almost hazy eyes without feeling choked up, but that’s another story.

there was also a period of time when yukhei would ask for pick-up lines in mandarin days before their first fanmeeting in china to use for fans. at first, sicheng would pretend he doesn’t know one, then yukhei said he was going to kun’s room for some help. so obviously sicheng had to recite a pick-up line from like middle school so yukhei stays in the room. they spent fifteen minutes going back and forth with the lines, not because yukhei couldn’t pick up mandarin, but because they end up laughing halfway through it and yukhei keeps adding hand movements.

the way his face lit up and grinned widely to sicheng’s direction when the fans erupted with squeals from the crowd was enough to make him feel like he’s on the clouds that night.

▬ 

“ah,” yukhei says suddenly, snapping sicheng out of his memory lane moment. “that candy tastes so watered down but even after I brushed my teeth, its taste is still there.”

“it’s that strong?”

“it reminds me of that time when yangyang had leftover coke,” yukhei starts laughing, “and he put it on the water dispenser in the practice room so we had coke-flavored water for like a month.”

sicheng laughs along with him, he remembers that clearly. no one was mad at their youngest, but they had to bring their own water tumbler for a whole month so they can get water from the water dispenser on the next floor. for the whole month, they were more wary with bringing their own tumblers than being late. 

(“i can handle getting scolded for being late,” xiaojun says when they were sprinting on the way to the said room, “but i cannot drink coke-flavored water after dancing for four hours.” it was followed by an array of agreement from the rest of the group and yangyang’s laugh was the loudest.)

today was a good day, sicheng concludes when they settle in a comfortable silence like most of the nights they’re in the room. there wasn’t a need to say something, much more to say something witty for the kicks or just to keep a conversation going. instead, they let the soft whirring of the air conditioner envelope them the way their duvets envelope their bodies. 

but a big factor as to why this particular day was good is because of two words: grocery shopping.

every third week of the month, at two o’clock in the afternoon, someone from the dorm has to leave their comfortable room to go and refill their fridge from the company card. it’s a punishment, one would say. after going to the gym and eating lunch, someone has to do the grocery. sicheng doesn’t recall who came up with this idea. 

the thing is, this task is only assigned to sicheng. it’s not like the other members never volunteered to come with him, ten accompanied him a couple of times, sometimes hendery, sometimes kun. but one time in august, yukhei volunteers to come with him because he’s looking for something so particular that he has to come with him there. it’s okay though, sicheng doesn’t mind. in fact, he also doesn’t mind that it has became their thing. 

if the schedule is not quite filled that week, after lunch, they gather in the living room with the louis, leon and bella; and ask everyone to list down what they want from the store. it has became so much of a thing that the list barely changes and would always include vegetables and meat for kun so he can cook and they don’t become entirely dependent on takeout, vitamins and cat food for the cats coming from ten, hendery usually asks for body wash and lotion, xiaojun just makes sure they know the exact and best brand of dog food for bella, and yangyang just lists down some snacks. 

the supermarket they go to is usually deserted at that time of the day, especially during weekdays. sometimes sicheng thinks this is the most “normal” task he’d get to do. yukhei would push the cart and read the next item they’d look for, and sicheng would be the one to read the labels and even ask the staff where they can find a certain product. 

(maybe, just maybe, they try to put off looking for hendery's super specific body wash for a few minutes and just wander around. maybe taste some testers from the dessert aisle, maybe finish a whole song playing from the grocery’s speakers. or maybe just to buy some time together. he doesn’t mind. and he thinks yukhei doesn't mind either, with the way he purposely tries to read some random soup labels.)  
  
  
  
takeshi kaneshiro hurried to say his beeper’s password. 

“your friend in room 702 says happy birthday day," a woman's voice said from the tv.  
  
  
  


▬ 

when yukhei turned twenty, it was barely two weeks after they debuted. there were some awkward moments here and there like that time when they sat at the dining table across each other but it was a long day that they end up just staring at their plates until hendery asks what’s wrong or that time sicheng was lining up in the bathroom where yukhei’s showering but then yukhei opened the door with only a towel wrapped around his (tiny, chiseled) waist, not that sicheng’s looking at his (tiny, chiseled) waist. it was 4 am and he saw how the blush started from yukhei’s cheeks to the tips of his ears and sicheng felt his own cheeks warming up.

“good morning, ge.”

he could only nod back as he steps inside the shower.

but yukhei was so shy that night, although that didn’t stop him from smiling widely at everyone. everyone helped with cooking pad krapow moo saap with kun doing ninety percent of the cooking, ten talking to yukhei’s mom in thai for the exact recipe and the rest of them making sure xiaojun’s keeping an eye on the room where yukhei is sleeping.

he looked like he was about to cry when they greeted him happy birthday at midnight. he couldn’t stop bowing and hugging the members like it would be the last time he’ll be able to do that. the thai dish was the last straw, actually. sicheng had seem people cry a lot and most of them try to hurriedly wipe away the tears but not yukhei. he’s smiling so wide hendery joked about him sleeping with a hanger in his mouth but still there were tears in his eyes when he thanked everyone for preparing for his birthday and insisted on everyone to blow the candles after he wished for a long and fruitful career as wayv.

“happy birthday, xuxi,” sicheng says when they were the only ones in the kitchen that night. 

yukhei smiles back at him and sicheng thinks he’s staring directly at the sun.

▬ 

yukhei snores, causing him to jump a little bit from where he’s laying.

it’s not a common occurrence, the snoring. it usually wears off after a few minutes so sicheng is not that bothered. but then he realizes he’s still wearing the glasses. sicheng stands up, still being engulfed by the duvet, to take off the glasses and maybe turn off the lampshade, too. 

the distance between their beds isn’t that big so it didn’t really take much action to reach the side of yukhei’s bed where he’s sleeping. sicheng reaches for the middle wiring in of the glasses and slowly tugged it off from his face. he’s also not surprised yukhei fell asleep that fast, he does that a lot, falling asleep when he stayed still on a place for too long and he’s usually a heavy sleeper that even when bella was a puppy and would cry, yukhei would somehow sleep throughout it all. 

he’d seen yukhei barefaced a lot of times. maybe more so than the other members since they share a room and would even remove his makeup on the car when he’s from other schedules so when enters the dorm it’s off already and he just had to double cleanse. sicheng had seen him without the contacts nor the concealer countless times and yet he looks different tonight.

(and yes, sicheng would deny that he'd always stare a little longer when yukhei has no makeup on.)

perhaps it was the lighting from the tv screen that highlights his already high nose, round eyes, sharp brows mildly creasing in the middle and full lips. yukhei isn’t one to shy away from the camera, having auditioned to the company as a model in the first place and he’d be the one to strike a pose whenever a camera’s pointed at them. 

but why does he look so young in sicheng’s eyes? two years of an age difference isn’t that big but whenever he thinks of sixteen-year-old yukhei flying from hong kong to south korea to audition in one of the biggest entertainment companies in asia that somehow ended up calling “gege” and “hyung,” he wants to hug him and give him a pat on the shoulder. 

watching a wong kar-wai film at night was maybe a little too much, sicheng concludes. nights do make him sort of nostalgic, and he lets himself overthink sometimes just not to fall into repressing his emotions. it's because you're a scorpio, he hears hendery's voice in his head. whatever that meant. he just wasn't aware that today's topic is his roommate.

when he realizes he’s been standing there for probably a whole minute with yukhei’s glasses in hand, he takes a step back and sits on the edge of his won bed. he places the glasses on the top of the bedside table and then he inhales deeply. 

sandalwood, he recognizes. 

then he looked down on the candle next to his bedpost. _winlu,_ it reads on the packaging, _bought on 10/19/20._

he and yukhei went shopping for candles that one time, because both of them were having troubles with sleeping. google said maybe aromatheraphy candles can help so they planned that trip days before. they spend at least three hours picking out what scents they both like and picking a name they both want the candle to be named after. 

when they lit the candle the same night, that's when sicheng knew there was a _them._

and he thinks, oh. 

then he sees the trinity ring he got him as a christmas gift. 

the members let out a series of “oh!”s and yangyang wolf-whistles when yukhei open his gift for him. they were on the living room, kun sitting on the sofa with ten’s legs on his lap but both of them nearly jumped out of their seats when they saw the gift. xiaojun, hendery and yangyang kept glancing at each other and laughing, seemingly full of energy after eating.

but yukhei just smiled when usually he’s the first one to shout from excitement. 

“thank you, winwin-ge,” he says. 

he didn’t say “i’ll wear this all the time!” 

but he says, “i’ll take good care of this.”

it sounded like a testament, like a promise. 

ten asked him to explain what the gift was and sicheng sees the same blushing pattern unfold right before his eyes; as his own cheeks felt warm when the words _fidelity, friendship_ and _love_ replay on his mind.

and then sicheng thinks, _oh._

he didn’t know what to think after this certain realization so he opted to turn off the lamp shade and blew out the candle in case anyone sees what his face looks like. laid back to his bed, eyes glued to the ceiling. it felt like his life is flashing before his eyes and his face feels so hot he had to change his position in the bed, and lower the duvet to breathe.

that's the problem with pushing his thoughts so far back and letting it sit there for god knows how long - it comes in waves, filling up to the brim and now his feelings are overflowing. 

he looks over at yukhei, and thinks, _i'm in love with you._

and he waits. in wong kar-wai movies, when the main character finally knew they're in love with someone there's a change in the background music to something more mellow, maybe a difference in the camera angle or even a prolonged eye contact in there somewhere. 

after a few seconds, none of the things he mentally listed appeared. 

instead, he thought of the day he met yukhei for the first time.  
  
  
  


▬ 

lucas was sporting (a very) bleached blond hair and blue contacts, “i’m lucas, nice to meet you,” and went on to do a full-ninety degree bow. so he’s the new member then, sicheng thinks as he returns the greeting and bowed back. he can see why he’s the talk of the town (it's just the members, really) recently. five years later, now with a lion tattoo and infectious confidence in his talents that evidently shows in their stages. he’s hard to miss in a crowd given his height, but he’s even harder to miss in concerts. and he has that look in his face when they meet eyes while interacting with the fans as if saying _we’re on the top of the world, and we’re together._

xuxi feels more personal. he’d be the first one to plan for a member’s birthday, the first one to buy something for someone when he’s on tour abroad, the first one to speak up when someone looks anything but comfortable. he and xiaojun picked bella up, would buy one of those dog-parent books where they had to fill up information about their pet to keep track of the improvements. he would ask for pictures, sometimes in the middle of the night when he’s with other group activities, of what they did today or a video of bella doing absolutely anything but looking at the camera sicheng’s pointing at her directly. and xuxi would send a video of him walking in a foreign city back saying “i wish you were here.”

yukhei wasn’t a surprise to meet. if anything, sicheng knew he was like this. this being quiet in the night, airpods in while staring at the window of a plane, would fall asleep with glasses on. he would stay in the practice room for a few hours even though he’d gotten compliments from the instructors and would come back with takeouts from that food stall they wouldn’t usually get food from because it’s too crowded. he would never fail to call his mom at night before crashing in his bed. he would light up the candle before sicheng enters the room as if saying _welcome home._

▬ 

faye wong’s character, mei, is hiding behind the curtain so she wouldn’t get caught. the familiar background music reminded him of the first time he saw this film and thought it was weird to have someone inside your house and touch your things and clean after you all while not knowing who’s doing so.

come to think of it, he’s seen yukhei in some very unquestionable circumstances, and he's sure yukhei would say the same about him.  
  
  
  
proof number one: lightweight sicheng.

> when they got drunk for ten’s birthday, yangyang got three shots maximum, all under the supervision of kun. sicheng’s not much of a drinker, he doesn’t really enjoy the way gin burns his throat nor the way it smells. and he’s seen the members drunk, which is the most effective alcohol intake control he can get. 
> 
> ten breakdances in the middle of the living room but then would fall asleep with louis in his arms with leon settling on his feet. yukhei laughs really loud about literally anything sicheng says, which isn't very different from sober yukhei. kun gets very emotional and would recall all the times they spend as a group that would cause hendery to cry and opt for a group hug. xiaojun who belts out a cantonese folk song while doing said group hug and would chase bella while doing so. yangyang makes sure he’s documenting everything to use as a blackmail and would send closed-up pictures of them in the groupchat that they would laugh about the next morning. 
> 
> sicheng doesn’t remember how he’s like when he’s drunk, but yukhei (who’s unsurprisingly a heavyweight in alcohol) says he whines a lot like when he loses in a video game. sicheng also doesn’t remember much other than being carried to his bed and hearing yukhei say “you’re going to regret this in the morning, ge.” 
> 
> it feels like flying when he’s in his arms so sicheng thinks, _no i don’t think so._

proof number two: when he was walking around eggshells with bella.

> when sicheng was younger, he wasn’t a dog person. he didn’t really pay attention to having an opinion on the whole cats vs dogs debate. sure, he’d pet a dog if they come across one on the street but that ends there. 
> 
> but then bella came. she’s so small when she first arrived in the dorms, and by that time, sicheng already warmed up to louis and leon. cats are quiet and affectionate in their own way (“it’s just like you, ge,” yangyang commented once and everyone said its true) and so the cohabitation with a pair of cats started. 
> 
> yukhei was cradling her while sitting in his bed and she was wearing a tiny pink hoodie. sicheng was taking pictures of them and was not jealous as to why bella wouldn’t come to him when he calls her in the living room earlier. no, he’s definitely _not_ hurt. 
> 
> “ge, do you want to hold her?” 
> 
> “no, it’s okay.”
> 
> “really?”
> 
> “i don’t think she likes me.”
> 
> yukhei laughs at this, “of course she does. everyone likes you, hyung.”
> 
> sicheng makes a face and yukhei stood up from his bed to sit on his bed instead. and he felt a bit of panic because what if the puppy wakes up?
> 
> “dogs can feel if you’re scared of them,” yukhei starts, “so the trick is to be friendly. pretend like you’re not scared.”
> 
> “i’m not scared of bella.”
> 
> “exactly. you’re doing well already, ge,” yukhei says and he gently prodded sicheng by his elbow, “here, you should hold her.”
> 
> “is this a good idea?” sicheng asks but he spreads his arms anyway to make way for the puppy. 
> 
> “we wouldn’t be able to hold her like this when she gets big,” he says as he picks up bella with one hand to lay it own sicheng’s folded forearm. “and they grow so fast.”
> 
> “aiya,” bella lets a little sound when she settles on sicheng’s chest.
> 
> “she likes you because you’re warm,” bella looks up to sicheng for the first time. 

proof number three: that one time they couldn't get the shrimp dumplings.

> gangnam opened a new restaurant last week, a branch of tim ho wan made it’s way to korea. famous for its baked barbecue pork buns, black bean spare ribs and about hundreds of dumplings to choose from, atleast that's what their website said. 
> 
> yukhei looked far from tired even though they have been preparing for their comeback, which means the effort in practice doubles to make sure everything’s polished. “when school’s over, me and my friends would eat there sometimes.”
> 
> sicheng thinks of middle schooler yukhei who would race his friends so he can reach the place first. he asks, “what do you think should we get?”
> 
> “you have to try har gao, ge. it’s really good.”
> 
> but then their driver took a turn, and the supposed corner as to where gangnam’s tim ho wan branch should be standing has it’s neon green sign off. 
> 
> “ah, it’s closed already,” said their driver when they stopped in front of it. 
> 
> yukhei nodded and said they should look for the nearest restaurant in the block and he started typing on his phone. probably to tell kun it’s closed. 
> 
> sicheng couldn’t help but take a deep breath. they spend at least an hour going here after hours of rehearsing. he also haven’t had teochew cuisine in a while, not to mention yukhei looking excited on the way here - he felt pretty disappointed. 
> 
> not at the driver nor anyone in particular, but maybe the traffic. 
> 
> he felt yukhei tap his thigh from his side, his other hand holding his phone and says, “it’s okay, hyung. we can come back next time.”
> 
> sicheng lets himself relax - nevermind that they could’ve already took a bath and would be sleeping in the dorm right now, nevermind that he could take a nap right in the car but would have to get up when they get back there, nevermind that it would probably take them a few months after comeback to have this kind of free time.
> 
> yukhei’s hand rests on the same spot throughout the entirety of the ride home. 

maybe like mei, yukhei found his way to sicheng’s life in the ways he didn’t think someone would do so.

sicheng pats the duvet around him to find the tv controller and when he does, he turns off the tv.

and then the room’s pitch black. 

he has a skewed view on romance. like everything he had now, he had to work for it because nothing will be handed to him wrapped with a ribbon. and that in love, you have to earn it. there had to be tears, and fighting and he just doesn't have the energy for all of that. perhaps that's why he didn't pay attention to the possibility of it the first time yukhei made his heart skip a beat. he didn't pay attention to it the second time either, nor the third time. and all the times after that.

maybe he didn't want to accept that some things didn't have to be so difficult. 

it’s in the little shared moments, the type that would pass if you blink while watching it all unfold. it’s skipping sleep to stay on the phone when yukhei’s on a different time zone. it’s seeing him with the flu and they’d laugh at how different he’d sound when he speaks. it’s buying groceries together: eggs, orange juice, loaf of bread. it’s seeing his bare shoulder when he’s stepping out the shower and he asks sicheng to pass a towel from the drawer. it’s giving each other space when the other one needs some time alone and would pick up a conversation just where they left off after. it's watching each other's film recommendations and finding out why yukhei likes a certain movie so much. it’s sitting on the floor when a horror movie is on, popcorn flying everywhere when the killer appears and they’d hear kun playfully scold them. it’s brushing their teeth side by side in the middle of the night after a concert in tokyo where both of them were just staring emptily in the bathroom mirror then he catches yukhei’s eyes and they both break into a (very foamy) smile.

lucas had one hell of an entrance that day, xuxi made sure he was getting enough sleep, and then yukhei - god, did yukhei get under his skin. it’s like he knew what to say at the right moment, where to take him when the dorm feels a little bit crowded, and how to remind him he’s just _there._

he made his way in sicheng’s life, carved a yukhei-exclusive spot and guaranteed that his absence will be noticed. 

(sicheng does notice the lack of yukhei when he’s not there. he takes the time to clean the room a little bit so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he misses yukhei, but he does. and he was prepared to miss him by a whole lot.)

he turned to his side, so he’s facing yukhei.

there's a line there that he shouldn't cross, he knows that. right from the start, it's instilled that they are wayv's winwin and lucas to the world first before they're sicheng and yukhei. that if he lets him know about this certain epiphany, he might not get anything in return at all. it's not the right time, hell, is there even a right time for this? 

but he had to say it. to know about it was one thing; but to say it out loud was another. he thought about it. he though about it for a long time. he _had_ to say it, just to make sure it was real.

“i love you,” sicheng says in the dark.

the clock says 12 am. 

he doesn't know what type of heroic action he did in his past life that lead one boy from sha tin district and another from wenzhou to the right place and right time. and he doesn't know which specific deity to prepare an offering for that lead to a relationship that fell into place so easily. whichever angle sicheng looks at it, he's sure the universe took its time. in this little room with the remnants of cedar, where they’re nothing like winwin and lucas but eveything like sicheng and yukhei - he sees the tiny glimmer from the cartier ring.  
  
  
  


▬ 

he's seen him on his worst days and yet the last line of yukhei’s birthday letter to him read:

 _i'm glad i met you, gege. i think someone somewhere knew that i needed you._

“me, too,” sicheng says when he puts the letter down and he sees as the corners of yukhei's mouth lift up to reveal a smile.

▬ 

that night he dreamt of them dancing to whatever’s playing on the radio, yukhei sings some of the lyrics to him and sicheng sings it back.

○ ● ○ 


End file.
